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Sunday, February 13, 2011

DC Direct Clowns around with Harley Quinn!

I've been greatly enjoying DC Direct's Cover Girls of the DC Universe Statue Series, based on artwork by Adam Hughes, but I didn't pre-order the Harley Quinn installment of the series because she isn't a character that I'm particularly interested in. When I saw the statue in person, however, there was a little but important detail that made me decide to buy it. What was it? Read on..

This series continues to impress me, and I'm obviously not the only one - I noticed that my Harley was one of 8000, which is an incredible edition size for statues these days! One of the things I really appreciate in this line is that the translations from Hughes' art to the sculpt have been pretty much flawless, and Harley Quinn is no exception. I love the pose that Hughes chose for this, and it's been brilliantly executed in this piece. Hughes certainly knows how to draw the female form, and Jack Mathew's sculpt has conveyed that skill beautifully into three-dimensional form!

A good sculptor can give different elements of a design different senses of texture and weight, and Mathews has accomplished that here very expertly. The tassels at the ends of Harley's jester hat and cowl look like tassels - you have to touch them to see they're sculpted. Another example of this is the great wooden look that Harley's mallet has.

Even the best design and sculpt can be let down by a poor paint job, but there's no danger of that here. I tend to prefer matte finishes to pieces, but the shinier, reflective paint used here really suit Harley's outfit and accentuate its design of contrasting colours. It also helps her matte--painted mallet appear to be made of different materials. My statue has a flawless paint job.

Last but not least, what was it that made me decide to buy this beautiful piece when I saw it? It may sound a but macabre, but it was the blood spatter on the head and lower handle of Harley's mallet. It wasn't the gruesome aspect of this that appealed to me, but rather the humorous element that turned this statue from a good looking piece to something I decided I wanted to have on my shelf. Adam Hughes is very skilled at instilling a little "wink" to the viewer in his designs, and it's been very well done here!

I've passed on the Batgirl statue which was next up after Harley as it just doesn't gel with the rest of the series for me, but am very much looking forward to the future of the series, with Poison Ivy out shortly. Stay tuned for more Cover Girls of the DCU reviews!

I was surprised by the ES too. Poison Ivy is also fairly large at 7,000. Speaking of which, be SUPER careful in placing the shovel in her hand. I saw one that broke it's little finger almost immediately. I think that the best approach would be to place the handle in her hand first, and then try to slide the other end into the base.

And it actually is possible for there to be paint problems with Harley. Mine has a spot on her leg where the black paint is non-glossy, and I saw where someone else had a worse problem (though I forget where I saw the comment).